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Isn't it amazing how two people can think so differently, especially if it's one of the idle rich and his valet?
Bertie Wooster has been invited to a festivity in the English countryside. To make things more interesting there another guest has decided to take bets on the different competitions, the egg and spoon race, the mothers' sack race, and more.
Unfortunately their hostess has forbidden any kind of bets, so no one can tempt her husband ... but why?
Jeeves: The idea is an attractive one, Sir. Unfortunately, Lady Wickhammersley has come down strongly against any form of betting at Twing. Apparently, I understand, as a result of His Lordship losing the East wing in a game of shove ha'penny last week.
Wooster: Uh, this is bad news, Jeeves.
Jeeves: Indeed, Sir. It was only the strongest possible representations to the other party involved, and the passage of a considerable sum in money that saved the old place.
Wooster: No, no. I meant about the betting.
Jeeves and Wooster, UK, 1990 - 1993
A girl gets killed. Sounds like a normal murder investigation, but there's nothing normal in Twin Peaks.
If you heard about Twin Peaks, I don't have to say anything else, if you never heard about it, though, there's not much more I can say without writing a whole novel, but you need to know is that Agent Dale Cooper can get quite excited about a cup of good coffee.
Not this time ...
Pete Martell: Fellas, don't drink that coffee. You'd never guess. There was a fish in the percolator. Sorry.
Twin Peaks, USA, 1990 - 1991
Have you ever been lost? So lost that you didn't know where you were, not even the town?
That's what happened to Bernard who felt the urge to buy himself a motorbike, take off, not knowing where the trip would end.
Now he's somewhere in the middle of Alaska trying to find his way again. Joel might not be the best person to ask. The state of Alaska paid for his university education on the condition that he has pay it back by working in Alaska as a doctor for a few years. Instead of ending up in a nice hospital and a city apartment, however, Joel is ... well, in the middle of Alaska.
Bernard: Excuse me.
Joel: Yeah.
Bernard: Where am I?
Joel: You know I have been asking myself that same question since I got here. I finally figured out we are somewhere between the end of the line and the middle of nowhere.
Bernard: Oh. Where is that on the map?
Northern Exposure, USA, 1990 - 1995
We all know the Ghosts of Christmas from the Charles Dickens story, but Mulder and Scully are visiting different ghosts on Christmas Eve. Mulder heard about a haunted, cursed house in which a young couple had lived many decades ago and made a pact to die together on that day to make sure they would never have to spend a Christmas without each other.
Scully is sceptical as always, but when they meet the couple who tries hard to convince them to make their own pact, she isn't so sure anymore.
In the end things really get tough when Mulder shoots her and she him, but he makes her get out of the house and everything is fine as if nothing happened? Quite a different Christmas!
Scully (coming to Mulder's place): I, uh, I couldn't sleep. I was, um ... *sighs* Can I come in?
Mulder: Yeah. Aren't you supposed to be opening Christmas gifts with your family?
Scully: Mulder ... none of that really happened out there tonight. That was all in our heads, right?
Mulder (unsure): It must have been.
Scully: Not that my only joy in life is proving you wrong.
Mulder: When have you proven me wrong?
Scully: Well, why else would you want me out there with you?
Mulder: You didn't wanna be there? Oh, that's, um ... self-righteous and narcissistic of me to say, isn't it?
Scully: No, I mean ... maybe I did wanna be out there with you.
Mulder: Ah, you know ... I know we said we weren't going to exchange gifts, but, uh ... I got you a little something.
Scully: Mulder ...
Mulder: Merry Christmas.
Scully: I got you a little something, too.
Mulder (chuckling): Oh ...
They sit down to open their gifts and it begins to snow while you hear Bing Crosby sing "And have yourself a merry little Christmas now".
The X-Files, USA/Canada, 1993 - 2002
In my family it used to be tradition that the tree was put up on Christmas Eve. I remember there was always some struggling to saw off what was needed to make the tree stand straight, then we would get out the old ornaments.
I know that not everyone has a Christmas tree, though ...
Penny: Hey Sheldon, are you and Leonard putting up a Christmas tree?
Sheldon: No, because we don't celebrate the ancient Pagan festival of Saturnalia.
Penny (confused): Saturnalia?
Howard: Gather round, kids! It's time for Sheldon's beloved Christmas special.
Sheldon: In the pre-Christian era, as the winter solstice approached and the plants died, pagans brought evergreen boughs into their homes as an act of sympathetic magic intended to guard the life essences of the plants until spring. This custom was later appropriated by Northern Europeans and, eventually, it becomes the so-called Christmas tree.
Howard: And that, Charlie Brown, is what boredom is all about.
The Big Bang Theory, USA, 2007 -
Christmas decorations - I guess we all have a clear idea what we like. Maybe just a tree with a few ornaments, maybe several big and small trees all over the house, Santa's sleigh on the roof, elves in the garden, and sometimes things change over the years because you have children or more space or less space or cats.
Frasier's father is looking forward to seeing his grandson and pulls out all the decorations he can find, but he's still not quite happy.
Martin: You know, someone's gonna have to go back down to the storeroom. There's still something missing.
Frasier: You must be kidding, Dad. My God, this place couldn't look any more ludicrous.
Martin: Once I saw how these white hairs on his chin looked like a beard, the rest of the idea just fell into place!
Frasier, USA, 1993 - 2004
If you plan a robbery, especially one like the "Great Lochdubh Salt Robbery", you have to be prepared.
Lachie Jr. (whispering): Dad. Hey. There's a light on. We can't do it with a light on.
Lachlan McCrae: Right. This ... this requires a bit more nerve, all right? All right? Right.
Lachie Jr.: Yeah.
Lachlan McCrae: Stockings.
Lachie Jr. (holding up a pair of long knit stockings): Stockings.
Lachlan McCrae: No! Stockings. Women's stockings! Tights, for God's sake!
Lachie Jr.: I'm not going into a shop asking for women's tights. What would people think? What sick images would flash through their brains?
Lachlan McCrae: Gimme them here! You take that one. Is there holes in them?
Lachie Jr.: Yeah.
I wonder if it would have been a smart move to take off the jackets that have "Mc Crae & Son" on the back, too ... what do you think?
Hamish Macbeth, UK, 1995 - 1997
After never living alone for the bigger part of my life I found myself alone in my flat - alone as in the only human - from one day to the other. While it felt very strange at first, I soon learned how nice it can be to go to bed whenever I want, leave the light on and read, or watch TV until the wee hours of the morning, have an early dinner or a late breakfast, and doing things the way I like.
I wonder what it would be like now to live together with someone again, just like Frasier who takes in his father ... and his chair ... and ...
Niles (Frasier's brother): Dad, have you mentioned Eddie yet?
Frasier (shocked): Eddie??
Niles (leaving the flat and closing the door): Ta-ta.
Frasier: No, Dad, no, no, not Eddie!
Martin: But he's my best friend! Get me my beer, will you?
Frasier: But he's weird! He gives me the creeps! All he does is stare at me!
Martin: Ah, it's just your imagination.
Frasier: Look, Dad, no. No, I'm sorry, but I am putting my foot down. Eddie is not moving in here.
Meet Eddie ;-)
Frasier, USA, 1993 - 2004
Sal is having a hard time. Not only did her husband, the village doctor, die recently, but her son James is taking over the practice, her daughter-in-law Yasmeen is taking over the job as practice nurse that she used to have, and her daughter Tash rebels against establishment, wants to go travel with a yurt and just threw yet another job.
Now all of them are at her house for dinner and start fighting. James doesn't understand Tash, and Tash is determined not to sell her soul for a job.
Tash: Mum, am I a nihilist or an anarchist?
Sal: You're unemployed, love.
Little does she know that Tash's next job is practically right around the corner. She's going to be a wind farm generator monitor. Unfortunately the wind farm hasn't be built yet, and maybe it won't be built because Tash and her friends are going to protest against it, but if it will be built after all, that's what her job is going to be.
Nothing to worry there, eh?
Jam & Jerusalem, UK, 2006 - 2009
Do you know Mrs Bradley? Rich, emancipated, a writer of controversial books, smart, not a lady who holds back with her opinion - and to please my superficial side, oh, those hats (it's the 20s)!
Of course Mrs Bradley can't keep her nose out of a crime either ...
This time she is invited to speak at her old posh finishing school. The new headmistress didn't expect this kind of speech, though.
"But society is changing. Last year we women won the right to vote;
Amelia Earhart flew the Atlantic. Who knows, one day a woman
might be Prime Minister."
The headmistress gasps.
"I was expelled from Hadley Heights. Had I
stayed I might well have come to believe in home, harmony, humility, and gone on to lead a life of jam making and gin rummy, and
Chalfonts St. Giles. So, girls, before you settle for the little life,
remember, the world is now your oyster, and, provided you believe in
yourselves, there is nothing you cannot achieve."
The Mrs Bradley Mysteries, UK, 1998 - 2000
We all know that the life of a secret agent is dangerous. You could be shot, you could be strangled, you could be drowned or - always fun - you could be cut up by a laser beam ... or ...
After escaping the vat of bronze and pushing the art thief Bronzefinger into it instead during the following fight.
99: Oh Max. How terrible!
Maxwell Smart: Terrible for him, not for us.
99: I wonder what Bronzefinger would have done with us, Max.
Maxwell Smart: Well, he probably would have sold us to some public park. Just think of it, 99, there we would have been, two bronze statues giving pleasure to the thousands.
99: Thousands of art lovers?
Maxwell Smart: No, thousands of pigeons.
The worst fate of all? ;-)
Get Smart, episode "Bronzefinger", USA, 1966
You know how you sometimes read a very familiar word and somehow it suddenly just doesn't look right, in fact it gets worse, the longer you look at it?
Or you say something you never had a problem with before and it's clearly wrong, but you can't find the right thing?
You are not alone.
Rajesh: Who is it?
Leonard: It's Leonard.
Rajesh (opening the door): You can't come in.
Leonard: Well, I just wanna talk to her.
Rajesh: I forbid it.
Priya: Open the door, Rajesh.
Rajesh (closing the door): You heard it. I forbidded it.
Priya: Forbidded it?
Rajesh (frowning): Forbaded it?
Priya: Get out the way.
Hm, that "forbidation" didn't work so well.
Maybe this time?
Leonard and Priya come into the restaurant together.
Priya: Hi, Howard. Hi, Sheldon.
Howard and Sheldon: Hello.
Rajesh: Why are you holding hands? I forbid you to hold hands.
Priya: Rajesh, you know Leonard and I spent the night together.
Rajesh: Yeah, but you were just sleeping because I forboded you to have sex.
Leonard: The word is forbade.
Rajesh: You sure? That doesn't sound right.
See what I mean?
The Big Bang Theory, USA, 2007 -
Today I'm going to do something I haven't done before on this blog. I'm going to quote from the same series that I had quoted from last week. Bear with me. I got a very persistent cat on my lap, these are the only DVDs I have close to me at the moment, and if I don't write this post now, all I'll be doing is click around randomly and waste time that I could spend with beads instead.
More dinosaurs today, people. Or maybe not dinosaurs so much this time. The critters in question are described as being "like spiders, but with pincers, not fangs". Oooh, doesn't that sound nice?
Off into the tunnel our hunters go. Suddenly Abby hears something above her and lets out a shriek when she sees the creature.
The creature runs off and Abby says to her fellow hunters:
"Does anyone have a really big slipper?"
Cool lady. Little does she know that these buggers are not even their main problem.
Primeval, UK, 2007 - 2011
What are the dangers in dinosaur hunting? Well, you can get eaten obviously. Or stepped on. Or maybe stepped on first and then get eaten.
There is something even more dangerous, though ....
Cutter: Oh, those risks you were talking about. There's one I didn't tell you about running down your back.
Lester sniffles, looks at his back, see's Rex' "gift", sighs and leaves.
Brown turns to the side to hide her chuckle.
Cutter: It's so perfect.
Primeval, UK, 2007 - 2011
Although I have never been to Oxford myself - only to Cambridge - I have enjoyed watching two crimes series taking place there, the second series being a spinoff of the first one.
Today I'm going to cheat a bit. The quote is from one episode, yes, one of my favorite episodes in fact, but it's more than that. It's the oath that people who wanted to use the famous Bodleian Library had to take before being allowed to do so. External readers who are not attached to the University still have to recite this oath which of course used to be in Latin.
Being a librarian I couldn't but wonder if that would work here as well ...
"I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, or to mark,
deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document, or other object
belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library or
kindle therein any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I
promise to obey all rules of the Library."
Lewis, UK, 2007 - 2013
P.S. I just read there are rumors there will be a new season after all. I'm officially excited now!
I don't know what your school library looked like, but I remember ours. It was divided into two parts. The one was for the lower classes at high school, adventure, fairy tales, classics, just for the fun read.
My Latin and biology teacher was in charge of it, and to get some help, she had a system of her own. Whenever someone forgot to do their homework or was caught talking in class or passing along notes, they got a so-called "Schlamperstrich", the opposite of a gold star you could say. She was always very fair and never tried to catch kids just to make them work, though. If you had seven of them, you had to work at the library for an hour.
I spent much time there, putting back books, wrapping books in laminating sheets, helping with the card catalog ... I know what you think now, but sorry, I was a volunteer and absolutely loved it! It had two little rooms and it felt cozy, especially when it was raining, and often my friend was there to help out as well which made it even more fun.
I think I only ever went to the part for the higher classes once to look something up. It was by far not as nice. It makes me wonder if it still looks like that today.
Although I can't remember if I saw others use the library very often I'm pretty sure that none of the two were ever used to hold meetings about how to slay vampires and demons .... which brings us to today's quote.
Xander: Hello!
Two students are entering the school library.
Xander: Excuse me, but have you ever heard of knocking?
Jonathan: We're supposed to get some books. On Stalin.
Xander: Does this look like a Barnes & Noble?
Giles: This is the school library, Xander.
Xander (surprised): Since when?
Giles (towards the students): Yes. Third row, historical biographies.
A wonderful series for librarian quotes! ;-)
Buffy The Vampire Slayer, USA, 1997 - 2003
I'm living at a place I like to call The Museum - one of these days I'll have to get myself a sign over the door - which refers not only to some of my vintage furniture, but also to my small collections. Let's face it, I'm not the modern kind of person. Tiled floors with a single sofa in one corner and shelves of brushed metal, not for me.
For that reason the following is hilariously funny to me.
While her daughter Saffron is away to get married in Africa, Eddy decides to get her kitchen re-done, again. She brings in her old friends Bettina and Max to do the job which turns out to be not such a good idea.
Max: "How are we doing?"
Bettina: "There's still too much in here."
Max looks around the empty white kitchen.
Bettina (pointing at the table): "I want ... that out of here."
Max: "We can't get it out."
Bettina (exasperated): "Jesus."
Max: "Steady."
Bettina (whispering): "I have to start with white box."
Max: "It, it IS white box."
Bettina is walking over to the table.
Max: "Erm ... what do we think ... over, over here?"
Bettina (looking at the white emptiness): "Do we need anything more?"
Max: "Well, a little, I think ... for the client."
Bettina (yelling and pointing at the table): "I want that out!"
Max: "We can't get it out."
Bettina: "Why??"
Max: "Cos you've taken out the stairs!"
The next moment Eddy comes flying down ... after all there are no stairs. It doesn't end well. Bettina has to be put back on medication, and Eddy is sitting in an empty kitchen with her friend Patsy and her assistant Bubbles when Saffron comes home ...
A friend of mine used to say that she wanted a loft with just a chair in it. Makes me wonder if she's one of Bettina's relatives ;-)
Absolutely Fabulous - White Box, UK, 2004
Today I'm going to take you back a family that I introduced to you in June 2012.
The daughter of Phil and Claire, Haley, has decided to move in with her boyfriend Dylan right after highschool. Haley and Dylan are convinced they'll make it, her parents are not quite so convinced, mostly because they know both her daughter and Dylan.
I think Phil makes the best point ever in such a discussion.
For all of you IKEA lovers out there ...
Claire: Um, at first, it's a blast. Buying a dish rack, hanging a sheet up to turn one room into two.
Phil: Allen-wrenching a bookcase called a "Njarnk" because you couldn't afford the "Sklurg".
*gasp* Can you imagine having to do with the "Njarnk" instead of the "Sklurg"??? I don't even want to think about it!!!
;-)
Modern Family, USA, 2009 -
Sean and Claudia, an Irish-Italian couple who had to get married at an early age, lead a conventional life with their three kids in their house on Staten Island. Do they really?
Today's quote is from the time when Eddie, Sean's brother, who has loads of dark secrets decides to put up a yard sale ... at Sean's house.
Claudia's coming into the house holding a toaster.
Eddie: Ah Claudia, I see you're interested in the toaster.
Claudia: Yes, Eddie, I'm interested in the toaster because the toaster is mine!
Eddie: How often do you actually use that thing??
Claudia: Still got my toast in it!!
Little does she know that she'll have to run after her porch swing in a little while to buy it back ...
Grounded For Life, USA, 2001 - 2005
This quote is dedicated to my sister who was smart enough to videotape this series when it was on TV many years ago. It was one of those short-lived shows that are shown in the middle of the night, and maybe you are lucky to stumble upon it and get hooked before it's over. She got hooked and I want to thank her for that.
You can find some episodes on YouTube, but although I don't seem to be the only one who'd love to have this on DVD in good quality, chances are more than slim.
Bakersfield, California. A Washington cop has just moved there for personal reasons and he finds a police department that is very, very different from what he used to know ... a captain who completely depends on his sergeant because he has a hard time to make decisions, a naive young partner who takes much of his experience from TV crime series, the tough, but not all that intelligent cop and his caring, soft-hearted partner, and a bunch of, erm, interesting criminals and problems like that clown ... you have no idea what a clown at a burger place's fest can do to a town. Chaos and anarchy, not to be taken lightly.
Captain Stiles: I am trying to tell you something. We are sitting on quite a bit of dynamite here and you are the burning fuse!
Sergeant Hampton: What the Captain and I are trying to make clear to you is the explosiveness of the situation.
Captain: My friend, you have great power over the people her, and I'd like to know how you intend to use this power.
The clown stays silent.
Captain: Does this man talk, Phil??
Sergeant: Yes, Sir. Mimes are silent, clowns ...
Clown interrupting: That's not true. Some clowns talk, and some honk. I can do both.
Captain (to Sergeant): So he can talk after all! How lovely! Tell me then, erm, Dave ...
Clown: Hoho.
Captain: Ok. Hoho. Are you going to make trouble today?
Clown: The traffic, that's your problem. You either charge me now or you let me go. It's my job to entertain people.
Captain: We are just talking.
Clown: That is discrimination of a clown. Why is the Chicken not here?
Sergeant: The Chick doesn't want to perform at our main street crossroad.
Clown: Because he is lousy. Just like the Pirate.
Captain (alarmed): The Pirate? Phil?
Sergeant: I will check that, Sir.
Captain: Now listen closely, Mr Hobo or Hoho or whatever you call yourself. Okay. You and your big clown feet stay on the Los Burgers premises, if not you are back here so fast you'll wish you'd have joined the circus!
Clown: I wanted to join the circus.
Captain: What?
Clown: They didn't want me.
Captain: I'm sorry, Sir.
Clown: Go to hell.
Bakersfield, P.D., USA, 1993 - 1994
P.S.
This time things are a bit different. Usually I have the English and
German original for both of my blogs or I have the English original and
translate it into German. This episode however was not on YouTube and I
only have the German dubbing. Forgive me any mistakes, I'm not a native
speaker, also I can't know if the text was changed much for the German
version.
